SL minister punishes Batticaloa villagers for supporting TNA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 11 August 2013, 22:38 GMT]
More than 1,830 acres of paddy crops lying on the left hand channel of Unnichchai tank are in the verge of dying without water supply. Spill gates of the tank have been closed from July 25 as SL Deputy Minister in Rajapaksa government Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan has imposed a ‘ban’ on water supply to farmers on the left channel as ‘punishment’ for their support to the parliamentarians of Tamil National Alliance in the Eastern Province, civil sources in Batticaloa said.

The affected farmers blame the District Irrigation Engineer for penalizing them for seeking assistance from TNA parliamentarian P. Selvarasa.

Further, the District Irrigation Engineer was also used by the Colombo government which was allegedly responsible for an attack on Tamil farmers who were cultivating paddy at Kozhuvaa-madu in Vaakaneari Poththaanai area on July 28.

In that attack 22 Tamil farmers were injured. Following that episode, a group of farmers staged a protest demonstration against the District Irrigation Engineer, who is being used by the paramilitary leader Muraleetharan alias Karuna.